The portal needed work. The old version got the job done functionally, but it didn't communicate anything to the player beyond "this is a portal." We wanted it to feel like a real window into another space.
So we reworked the visuals from the ground up. The portal surface is now concave, curving outwards like a fisheye lens. It catches the light differently and reads as a physical object in the world rather than a flat texture stuck on a frame.
The bigger change: it now shows a live view of the area you're about to teleport to. Walk up to it and you can actually see what's waiting on the other side. This does two things. It makes the portal feel grounded and real, and it gives players information. You're no longer stepping blindly through a wall of light, you're making a choice about where you're headed.
Small detail, big difference in how the space feels to move through. It's one of those changes that doesn't show up on a feature list but completely changes the moment-to-moment experience.
